Friday, October 26, 2012

We've posted before about the millions of
photographs taken of artworks in museums every day and how the Mona Lisa and
other destination paintings are almost impossible to see for the hordes of
point-and-pressers crowded around them. Now the latest iteration of
art-photography is gathering steam: snap a photo in front of your own special
artwork. Two for one - an artwork and a friend.

Less endearing are the photos of the rich
and the powerful standing in front of paintings they own or control.It's a modern day version of the
tradition by which landowners have their estates oiled in behind them by the
likes of Thomas Gainsborough and the rest. As John Berger said of
Gainsborough’s famous landed gentry painting Mr and Mrs Andrews, “their
proprietary attitude towards what surrounds them is visible in their stance and
their expression.” So too with modern day portraits of high flyers and their
art.

We were reminded of all this when we saw
these pics of businesswomen before art in a Next
magazine (who knows what issue, we’re talking doctor’s waiting room here).
Inevitably the two paintings are by men, but then you can’t have everything.

Images: Top to bottom, Thomas Gainsborough Mr and Mrs Andrews, snapping at the Mona Lisa, peace-signs and Pollock and what comes in Next